Kubectl: Add ANSI colors to kubectl describe and other outputs

[izelnakri]

FEATURE REQUEST:

Currently kubectl outputs are pretty boring without a color:

Adding color to them will make them easier to read. Each key could be colored based on its indentation level. Each key/value pair in labels,annotations,taints etc could be colored differently as well.

[fatalc]

Maybe a good idea

[seans3]

/kind feature
/sig cli
/area kubectl
/priority P2

[jglick]

Specifically I would expect colorization on get -o yaml and get -o json. At least for the latter, you can work around this by

kubectl get -o json $type $name | jq .

[bossjones]

@jglick as a work around you can use something like https://www.npmjs.com/package/cli-highlight then run:

kubectl get -o json $type $name | highlight

That's what I do currently :)

[spuder]

You could also use vim -R to preview the contents with some (limited) color highlighting

kubectl get $type $name | vim -R -c 'set syntax=yaml' -

since that is a lot to type, you may want to wrap that in a bash function

function vaml() {
  vim -R -c 'set syntax=yaml' -;
}

then you can simply pipe to the function

kubectl get $type $name | vaml

[geekofalltrades]

This would be really helpful to see the difference between "Pending" and "Running" on get pods. Right now they're hard to distinguish:

Running
Running
Pending
Running
Running

[mdz]

It would be great to highlight pods in "kubectl get pods" where # of ready containers < total # of containers

[fejta-bot]

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[izelnakri]

/remove-lifecycle stale

[austinorth]

This would be so helpful. Anyone working on a PR for this?

[meltingrobot]

Having colorized output for kubectl get nodes would be fantastically helpful.

[lukjaw]

@geekofalltrades I use this:
GREP_COLOR='01;32' egrep --color=always 'Running|$' | GREP_COLOR='01;33' egrep --color=always 'ContainerCreating|$' | GREP_COLOR='01;33' egrep --color=always 'Terminating|$' | GREP_COLOR='01;31' egrep --color=always 'Error|$' | GREP_COLOR='01;31' egrep --color=always 'CrashLoopBackOff|$' | GREP_COLOR='01;31' egrep --color=always 'ImagePullBackOff|$' | GREP_COLOR='01;33' egrep --color=always 'Pending|$'

save it as a file lets say k8s_color

and then:

kubectl get pods | source k8s_color

I know its not elegant solution but it gets the job done

[TomaszKlosinski]

Any news on this?

[apemost]

As a work around you can use bat then run:

$ kubectl get pods -o yaml | bat -l yaml

[a0s]

Another weird work around

kubectl get pods | ccze -A -o nolookups

It would be great if someone writes a "kubernetes plugin" for CCZE :)

[andreazorzetto]

Or in alternative you could try yh for YAML output

$ kubectl get pods -o yaml | yh

[TomaszKlosinski]

This issue is opened for almost 2 years. Is it on the roadmap?

[gattytto]

I am currently using zsh instead of bash and antigen to manage zsh "plugins", one of them is "antigen bundle c-castillo/ccze" which resides in github.com/c-castillo/ccze

for kubectl get X color I have added the jq plugin to zsh so I use kubectl "-o json" and then press ALT-J and I Can see the colors for the json output of kubectl command, and to stuff with it using jq. maybe yh can be added to the mix @andreazorzetto

I think it would be nice to start from there since handy shortcuts can be made and kubectl can be added to a list of commands ccze can process, thought I haven't checked how it manages the rules for the coloring.

here's my current .zshrc :
````bash
source ~/antigen.zsh
antigen bundle zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting
antigen bundle reegnz/jq-zsh-plugin
antigen bundle c-castillo/ccze
export PATH=/snap/bin:$PATH
set -g mouse on
powerline-daemon -q

tmux new

source /usr/share/powerline/bindings/zsh/powerline.zsh
POWERLINE_CONFIG_COMMAND=powerline-config

powerline-config tmux setup

Set up the prompt

source /usr/share/powerlevel9k/powerlevel9k.zsh-theme
autoload -Uz promptinit
promptinit
prompt adam1
setopt histignorealldups sharehistory

Use emacs keybindings even if our EDITOR is set to vi

bindkey "\033[1~" beginning-of-line
bindkey "\033[4~" end-of-line

Keep 1000 lines of history within the shell and save it to ~/.zsh_history:

HISTSIZE=1000
SAVEHIST=10000
HISTFILE=~/.zsh_history

Use modern completion system

autoload -Uz compinit
compinit

zstyle ':completion:' auto-description 'specify: %d'
zstyle ':completion:' completer _expand _complete _correct _approximate
zstyle ':completion:' format 'Completing %d'
zstyle ':completion:' group-name ''
zstyle ':completion:' menu select=2
eval "$(dircolors -b)"
zstyle ':completion::default' list-colors ${(s.:.)LS_COLORS}
zstyle ':completion:' list-colors ''
zstyle ':completion:' list-prompt %SAt %p: Hit TAB for more, or the character to insert%s
zstyle ':completion:' matcher-list '' 'm:{a-z}={A-Z}' 'm:{a-zA-Z}={A-Za-z}' 'r:|[._-]= r:|=* l:|='
zstyle ':completion:' menu select=long
zstyle ':completion:' select-prompt %SScrolling active: current selection at %p%s
zstyle ':completion:' use-compctl false
zstyle ':completion:*' verbose true

zstyle ':completion:::kill::processes' list-colors '=(#b) #([0-9]#)=0=01;31'
zstyle ':completion::kill:' command 'ps -u $USER -o pid,%cpu,tty,cputime,cmd'
antigen apply
````

[fejta-bot]

Issues go stale after 90d of inactivity.
Mark the issue as fresh with /remove-lifecycle stale.
Stale issues rot after an additional 30d of inactivity and eventually close.

If this issue is safe to close now please do so with /close.

Send feedback to sig-testing, kubernetes/test-infra and/or fejta.
/lifecycle stale

[izelnakri]

/remove-lifecycle stale

[dty1er]

Just FYI I've made a CLI tool to do this.
https://github.com/dty1er/kubecolor

[eddiezane]

Cheers @dty1er and thanks for sharing.

Would be good to have you join us for a future sig-cli meeting to talk potential for getting your work upstream.

https://github.com/kubernetes/community/tree/master/sig-cli#meetings

[dty1er]

Hi @eddiezane .
Wow nice! I am willing to join the meeting and want to talk about kubecolor with you guys. When will you have a next one?

[eddiezane]

@dty1er next meeting will be November 4th. You'll get a calendar invite if you join the mailing list.

[dty1er]

Will join the next one!

[eddiezane]

This was discussed today.

Take away is we'll need to create a KEP and then determine the challenge of implementation and maintainer burden. Is this supported server side or client side?

Recording if anyone is interested https://youtu.be/NtmbMqWCbOI?t=1322

[dty1er]

Starting working on writing KEP, will share the one once it's ready here

[miton18]

Any KEP in progress ? :-)

[dougsland]

/cc dougsland

[dty1er]

Sorry for the delay of my work.
It is not forgotten but I'm just getting busy for my work :(

[sviatoslav-somov]

@dty1er Any updates? 🙏

[nickjmv]

Great job so far, really looking forward to an update!